


A Conversation in Starfleet

by Setcheti



Series: Conversations [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarek of Vulcan was bored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Conversation in Starfleet

Sarek of Vulcan was bored. The tribunal – or mockery thereof, he was beginning to believe – was heading into its second hour and showed no signs of reaching any sort of logical conclusion. The only thing obvious to Sarek about it was that it had become ridiculous. Mainly because of Admiral Nogura, who, in Sarek’s estimation, was the most illogical thing in the room at the present time. Sarek found the idea that this man had been his son’s mentor during his sojourn at Starfleet Academy both enlightening and disturbing – it certainly explained some of the more unwelcome attitudes Spock seemed to have picked up since the last time Sarek had been present to spend any amount of time with him. Sarek resolved to make some time to speak with Spock further about the subject, possibly to relate to him the inappropriateness of the man’s behavior at the tribunal. If that did not help, he might also inform his son that his mother had never liked Nogura and had on occasion called him by several names in her native tongue’s vernacular which Sarek was given to understand were exceptionally rude. 

Thinking of his wife made Sarek hurt, and he quickly pushed those thoughts aside for later; his pain would affect those others of his people who were in the room with him. Luckily the humans were not so sensitive...

…Or were they? The subject of the tribunal had just reacted to something, wincing ever so slightly, his blue eyes flicking over to the Vulcan contingent and just as quickly flicking away again. Sarek sat up a little straighter. He had seen that mannerism before, just not in a human. Vulcan children, however…

Nogura, who had been attempting to press his point of the moment and not making much headway, had also seen it. “Did I strike a nerve, Kirk?”

The boy shook his head. “I have a headache,” he said, and waved a hand when one of the other officers on the tribunal – no doubt seeing an opportunity to escape the tribunal for a time – would have said something. “It’s fine, I’m fine, we don’t need to stop.” 

The disappointment radiating from the ‘concerned’ officer would have been amusing to Sarek if he had not had something more important to focus his attention on. The boy was not lying about having a headache; in fact, Sarek would not have been surprised if everyone in the room besides Admiral Nogura had one, the admiral being excepted because he was the cause.

That had been a very Amanda-like thought, and he had to push the pain back down. And where he stood all alone before the tribunal, the boy winced again. 

Sarek stood up abruptly, concentrating very hard on thoughts of his wife, and the boy actually staggered.  He moved around the table and crossed the floor in a few long steps, ignoring the admiral’s demands for him to return to his seat, placing himself between the beleaguered young officer and the rest of the room.  Deliberately, he forced his grief and loss back again, and the boy relaxed. And swallowed. “Mr. Ambassador?”

Sarek, referencing another saying of his wife’s, mentally kicked himself. “You are obviously untrained, Kirk,” he observed in a low voice. “The awakening of this gift was recent? Perhaps…unexpected?”

A bare nod. “Very. I’m…” Sarek thought of Amanda, and Kirk’s blue eyes welled with tears. “I’m…so sorry for your loss, sir. I didn’t mean to intrude on your grief.”

“You did not.” Sarek controlled his thoughts again. “Was it a mind meld?” he demanded.  A hesitant nod.  “Did a Romulan do this to you?”  A negative shake.  “Was it my son?”

“No.”  That time there was no hesitation; Kirk looked shocked by the very idea.  “No, it..I mean, it wasn’t…”  He drooped, blue eyes hopeless.  “I can’t talk about it.  I can’t _tell_ anyone.”

Sarek lifted his right hand.  “Then may I see for myself?”  Kirk nodded, but he closed his eyes and the Vulcan couldn’t help but notice that the boy was exerting a good amount of willpower not to jerk away from his touch.  As gently as he could, he initiated the mind meld, employing a lifetime of mental discipline to keep his own pain away from the younger, more fragile mind which he could now see was already suffering from an overload of it.  He cautiously sifted through the memories that boiled up and found the man who had initiated the meld …and mentally, he gasped.  No, it was not his son…but yet, it was.  And that other Spock, thinking he recognized _his_ James Kirk, an old friend whose mind he knew well, had initiated a meld without realizing…

Sarek viewed as many of the memories as quickly as he could and then released the connection.  He caught Kirk as the boy slumped over, sweeping him into his arms like a child and spinning to face the rest of the tribunal.  “Silence!” he ordered, and somewhat enjoyed the look of shock on Nogura’s face – and on the faces of the rest of the tribunal.  “My people, shield your emotions.  Admiral Marcus, we need a ship, immediately!”

The ranking admiral was on his feet.  “What’s going on here?  Where are you taking him?”

Sarek scowled at him.  “The only place this boy is going is to your medical center, to be placed in quarantine.  The rest of us are going to the third moon of Vulcan.”

One of the other officers exclaimed, “Quarantine!  What are we being protected from?”

“Nothing; the quarantine is to protect him from everyone else,” Sarek corrected coldly.  “This young man is a latent empath.  The man who unknowingly and without his knowledge unlocked his dormant ability is on that moon.  And although I or other of my people could attempt to fix the damage, the only one who can help him with any certainty is that man.”  He turned to a youngish officer standing nearby.  “You will find Dr. Leonard McCoy and have him meet us at the medical center; I will give Kirk into his care until we return.  Go!”  The eye he turned back to Marcus was cold.  “Are you coming, or shall I greet our fellow ambassador by telling him you did not wish to accompany me?”

“The man on that moon is…”  The admiral released an expletive, and a lot of his blustering pretence fell off.  He left the table himself and came to Sarek, frowning down at the unconscious young officer the Vulcan was holding.  “This is what he wouldn’t tell us, isn’t it?”

Sarek nodded, letting the incorrect assumption stand; hopefully it would kill the ridiculous exercise in Nogura’s personal vanity the tribunal had become. “He was instructed not to reveal the identity of the ambassador, so he did not.  The ambassador truly was unaware of the harm he had caused; to his knowledge the boy had no dormant abilities.”  The Vulcan glanced down himself, and shook his head.  “He has handled the forced awakening of his gift admirably.  You will recall that he took command of his ship and brought victory from defeat _after_ the incident occurred, and he has dealt with his responsibilities more than adequately over the days that followed.” He raised an eyebrow. “As you may recall, I was on that ship at the time. Which is the reason you requested that I be present for,” he didn’t bother to hide his distaste, “this proceeding.”

Admiral Marcus made a face. The feelings he was projecting were complicated – he obviously had little use for Nogura save as a tool, and Sarek suspected that there may have been plans within plans, only tangentially related to Nogura’s personal vendetta, which the success the boy had dragged from the jaws of defeat had disrupted. Interesting; he would think on that later. After a long moment, the admiral sighed and nodded, and Sarek felt his acquiescence and personal acceptance of same. “You’re sure the ambassador is still there?”

He meant alive, and Sarek nodded at once. “Yes. When Kirk left him, he was occupying the outpost on that moon with the engineering assistant assigned there.” The admiral looked at him. “Vulcans do not even have a word for that concept, Admiral Marcus. And am confident in saying I know he would not even consider it; our fellow ambassador is a…distant relation of mine.”

In his mind and heart, his beloved Amanda crowed with pure human joy at the now complete capitulation of the admiral to her husband. Sarek did not outwardly react to this; but in his arms, the unconscious boy’s face gained the faintest of smiles.


End file.
